If you’ve ever tried to wrangle a team in a gifting platform, you know it’s a lot more than just clicking checkboxes. Permissions and roles can get messy fast—especially if you’ve got a mix of sales, marketing, and ops folks in the mix. This guide’s for anyone who’s been handed admin keys (or asked for them) in Sendoso and doesn’t want to make a mess that bites them later.
Why Permissions and Roles Actually Matter
Let’s be real: most platforms make a big deal about “fine-grained permissions.” But in everyday use, you probably just want the right people to do their jobs without stepping on each other’s toes—or accidentally nuking the company credit card.
Done right, good role management in Sendoso means:
- Sales reps can send gifts but can’t edit the warehouse.
- Marketing can build campaigns without fiddling with billing.
- Only a handful of trusted souls can touch the budget or see sensitive data.
Get this wrong, and you’ll waste time fixing mistakes, or worse, discover that someone sent 200 mugs to the wrong continent.
Understanding How Sendoso Handles Teams and Roles
Before you start, get clear on a few Sendoso basics:
- Teams: These are groups of users, often mapped to departments or regions.
- Roles: Pre-set levels of access (like Admin, User, Manager). Each role comes with certain abilities—and some can be customized.
- Permissions: The actual “can do/can’t do” settings for actions like sending, approving, or managing integrations.
You can get pretty granular, but don’t go wild. Over-complicating roles leads to confusion and angry Slack messages.
Step 1: Map Out Who Needs Access—And Why
Don’t start clicking before you know what you want. Grab a notepad or spreadsheet, and list:
- Who needs to send gifts?
- Who should approve budgets?
- Who manages campaigns or templates?
- Who touches billing or overall settings?
You’ll usually end up with 3-5 “types” of users, like:
- Everyday Senders: Sales reps, CSMs—need to send, see their own activity.
- Managers: Team leads—need to see team activity, maybe approve sends or budgets.
- Admins: Ops, finance—set up teams, see everything, manage billing.
- Marketing: Build and manage campaigns, maybe tweak templates.
Pro tip: Less is more. The more people who have admin rights, the more likely something breaks.
Step 2: Get to Know Sendoso’s Built-In Roles
Sendoso (as of early 2024) offers several default roles:
- Admin: Can do everything, including user management, billing, integrations, campaigns. This is the “keys to the kingdom” role.
- Manager: Can view and manage their team’s sends and campaigns, but can’t touch company-wide settings or billing.
- User (Sender): Can send gifts, access templates, and view their own activity—but not much else.
- Finance: Can view and manage billing, but usually can’t send gifts.
- Custom Roles: Some plans let you tweak permissions or create new roles. Honestly, most folks don’t need this unless your org is weirdly complex.
What works: Stick to default roles unless you have a really good reason otherwise. Custom roles can be handy for edge cases, but they’re easy to overthink.
What doesn’t: Giving Admin rights to everyone “just in case.” That’s asking for trouble.
Step 3: Set Up Teams and Assign Roles Carefully
- Create Teams: Map teams to your org structure—Sales, Marketing, Customer Success, etc. Don’t get too granular. One team for each major department is usually enough.
- Add Users: Invite users by email. Pro tip: Batch this if possible to avoid missing people.
- Assign Roles: For each user, pick the lowest role that lets them do their job. If you’re not sure, err on the side of less access—you can always promote later.
- Double-check: Before you hit “save,” review all admins. If there are more than two or three, ask yourself if they really need it.
Common Pitfalls to Avoid
- Forgotten former employees: Remove people when they leave. Set a quarterly calendar reminder.
- Too many admins: If everyone’s an admin, no one’s responsible.
- Ignoring Finance: Finance folks need access, but rarely need to send gifts. Give them the Finance role, not Admin.
Step 4: Fine-Tune Permissions (If You Must)
If your Sendoso plan supports custom permissions, don’t get carried away. Only tweak if you run into a real problem, like:
- A manager can’t see their team’s spend.
- Marketing can’t edit templates.
- Finance can’t pull the reports they need.
Otherwise, stick to defaults. Over-customization leads to confusion and, eventually, mistakes.
Honest take: Most “permission problems” are actually process problems. If your team doesn’t know who’s responsible for what, no amount of checkbox-ticking in Sendoso is going to fix it.
Step 5: Set Up Approval Workflows (If Needed)
If you’re worried about big spends or compliance, use Sendoso’s approval workflows:
- Set spend limits for users or teams. Anyone going over needs approval.
- Require approvals for expensive sends or certain campaigns.
This is worth doing if you’ve got a big team or strict budget controls. If you’re a small group, skip it unless you’ve already had a problem.
What works: Clear, simple approval rules. “Anything over $100 needs manager approval.”
What doesn’t: Overly complex approval chains. If every $10 coffee gift needs three sign-offs, people will just stop using the tool.
Step 6: Review Regularly (But Don’t Micromanage)
Set a quarterly (or at least bi-annual) reminder to:
- Review who’s got Admin rights.
- Remove ex-employees.
- Check for “role creep”—people who got promoted to Admin for a one-time task and never downgraded.
You don’t need to audit every month. As long as someone’s paying attention a few times a year, you’ll catch most issues.
Pro Tips and Honest Advice
- Document your roles: Write down who’s supposed to have which role. That way, you’re not scrambling when someone leaves or changes teams.
- Communicate changes: If you change a user’s access, tell them. Nothing’s more frustrating than losing permissions with no warning.
- Don’t rely on Sendoso for all access controls: Some things (like sensitive CRM data) live outside Sendoso. Permissions here won’t cover everything.
- If you’re not sure, ask support: Sendoso support is usually pretty responsive on permissions questions—don’t guess.
What to Ignore (Mostly)
- Hyper-granular permissions: Unless you’re a huge enterprise, you don’t need to slice and dice access for every user.
- Custom roles for every team: You’ll just confuse everyone.
- Frequent audits: Overkill for most orgs.
Wrapping Up: Keep It Simple, Iterate as Needed
The best setup is the one you don’t have to think about every day. Start simple: use Sendoso’s default roles, limit admin access, and revisit a few times a year. If something breaks, fix it then—don’t try to anticipate every possible scenario upfront.
You’ve got better things to do than babysit permissions. Set it up right once, and you’ll spend more time sending cool stuff—and less time untangling who can click what.